The ICCASP Attack on US Foreign Policy

Borrowing the title of the best-selling book by the Federation of American Scientists on the dangers of the atomic age, the New York Chapter of ICCASP named their May rally at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn "One World or None." It featured a fiery speech by congressman Hugh De Lacy of Washington state who charged that the "Churchills and Hoovers," the British imperialists and the American monopolists, were engaged in a desperate effort to "gang up" in order to foment an anti-Soviet war before the next Five Year plan and Soviet atomic research (largely of US documents) made the USSR too strong to challenge. De Lacy also attacked US support for the Nationalists who he said, with some justification, were trying to force China to submit to the the rule of feudalistic war lords.

De Lacy. a teacher at the University of Washington and head of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, was elected to represent the Seattle area in Congress in 1944. The Popular Front line was that De Lacy was a "Progressive" and a "New Dealer," but according to his predecessor at the WCF, Howard Costigan, who defected from the Communist Party, De Lacy was a secret member of the Party. This was also the assertion of John Abt, chief counsel of the Communist Party USA, lifelong Party supporter, and DeLacy's longtime friend and colleague, in his memoirs. In the November election, De Lacy was defeated by a Republican by an almost two-to-one margin in this normally Democratic district, largely because of his support for Soviet foreign policy. He would play a prominent role in the Wallace campaign along with Abt in 1948.